8 days of film

Join us in Oct for over 180 films, Q&As, indie breakouts, narrative and documentary competition features, classic retrospectives, and a stellar shorts program.

Purchase your Film Pass while you still can!

This pass will get you into any of our venues across Austin! It is perfect for first time attendees who want a taste of the excitement at AFF and the opportunities to see this year’s award-season contenders alongside little indie gems and everything in between. Get on the FP notification list so you don't miss any updates!

4 days of amazing panels

It started as a getaway weekend for great barbecue, and has become a pilgrimage. Going to the Austin conference is like stepping into a time machine and returning to that day, that moment in time when you fell in love with movies and the idea of making them. And living a whole week feeling that feeling.”

I was completely surprised by the scale of AFF. Apparently, everything is bigger in Texas, including the hospitality. If you’ve never been to Austin it’s a great time to go. One of the
best film festivals you’ll ever experience.”

AFF’s Young Filmmakers Program introduces the arts of screenwriting and filmmaking to young people, ages 9-18, and provides them with venues for developing their storytelling talents. Here are a few of our programs:

Competition

The competition is free to enter and open to youth filmmakers ages 12 to 18! The competition opens DECEMBER 6th!

Did you know that Austin Film Festival provides group discounts to students at colleges, universities, and specialty schools? Consistently considered by MovieMaker Magazine as one of the “50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee,” AFF allows participating writers and filmmakers to measure themselves against the very best, while also providing valuable networking and learning opportunities.

Did you know that Austin Film Festival provides group discounts to students at colleges, universities, and specialty schools? Consistently considered by MovieMaker Magazine as one of the “50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee,” AFF allows participating writers and filmmakers to measure themselves against the very best, while also providing valuable networking and learning opportunities.

Calendar of Events

It’s back!

The critically-acclaimed and uber-loved Summer Film Camps & Classes, presented by Austin Film Festival, returns this June with rocking workshops that promise to teach, inspire, and help kids and young adults create their very own fabulous, funny, thought-provoking, heartbreaking, award-winning (you never know!) short films.

The opportunity to work with an instructor who has real world experience in the film industry during summer camp made a real impact on my [teen]. He loved everything about his camp experience!"

You’ll also receive discounts around town at participating businesses such as Alamo Drafthouse Village and Stephen F. Austin Bar and Terrace. Not to mention discounts to our Film & Food Fundraiser (otherwise known as the best party in Austin).

It's Back!

The critically-acclaimed Summer Film Camp, presented by Austin Film Festival, returns this June with rocking workshops that promise to teach, inspire, and help kids and young adults create their very own fabulous, funny, thought-provoking, heartbreaking, award-winning (you never know!) short films.

An evening dedicated to celebrating Austin’s thriving film industry and famous culinary talent!

Held in the glamorous and historic Driskill Hotel, the event brings Austinites and visitors together to celebrate the film arts and enjoy flowing cocktails and inventive cuisine from some of Austin’s most notable chefs. Live and silent auctions showcase the very best in luxury items, trips, and experiences.

Exclusive advanced screenings, film premieres, script readings, Conversations in Film, party invitations, and more! Skip the long lines and enjoy first entry into the theatre as an AFF Member . You’ll also receive discounts around town at participating businesses.

Austin Film Festival is a 501-3 organization. Your donation is tax-deductible to the extent allowed by the law. AFF has also made great strides promoting film production in Texas. Your support helps us to further the art and craft of filmmaking in our state.

Purchase a Film Pass for access to eight days of film screenings during Austin Film Festival – including over 180 films and Q&As, indie breakouts, narrative and documentary competition features, classic retrospectives, and a stellar shorts program.

Want to be first in line?

Purchase a Lone Star Badge and get priority access for all film screenings! Plus, get access to a full day of incredible panels at our Screenwriters Conference!

My best experience ever at a film festival was in Austin. So many festivals are flash over substance, a who’s who of movie stars. Here, the creators are the stars. And rightly so. So if you want to write, direct or produce motion pictures and get paid for it, attend this festival.”

Awards Luncheon

An evening dedicated to celebrating Austin’s thriving film industry and famous culinary talent!

Held in the glamorous and historic Driskill Hotel, the event brings Austinites and visitors together to celebrate the film arts and enjoy flowing cocktails and inventive cuisine from some of Austin’s most notable chefs. Live and silent auctions showcase the very best in luxury items, trips, and experiences.

This competition accepts both filmed and written submissions in an effort to find talented voices who can adapt their vision to emerging digital platforms. AFF will select one winner who displays the strongest voice and greatest potential for establishing a digital series.

As Austin Film Festival continues to grow and expand, our vision also widens with the addition of new avenues for storytellers. The Playwriting Competition is open to full-length stage plays and gives playwrights a chance to explore our film and television conference. It will also allow film professionals to discover storytellers who have mastered the art and craft of stage drama.

The Fiction Podcast Script Competition, leverages our legacy of championing storytelling to launch writers into the emerging world of podcasts. This competition connects audiences with incredible new stories, as well as connects writers with a medium that offers an incredible access to audiences and limitless opportunities to launch new stories.

AFF’s Young Filmmakers Program introduces the arts of screenwriting and filmmaking to young people, ages 9-18, and provides them with venues for developing their storytelling talents.

The program offers kids opportunities to share their creative work with peers, the public, and professional filmmakers and screenwriters. By introducing young people to the film industry, the program hopes to provide them new mediums to express their creativity, improve their communication skills, and benefit the entire arts community.

This exhilarating and unique event allows contestants 90 seconds to pitch their best ideas to a panel of judges made up of agents, producers, managers and screenwriters in a constructive and friendly environment.

MAKE SURE TO GET YOUR TICKET NOW AS THIS EVENT SELLS OUT EVERY YEAR.

Who knows what might happen? At the 2010 Pitch Competition, Mike Fry (Over the Hedge) optioned Lee Hoverd’s screenplay Ex-Men after hearing his pitch as a judge for the competition!

Staff Blog with Rob Gonzalez

Hotcakes

So… we’re locked up, you’re locked up, everybody’s locked up. We here at Austin Film Festival call this an important opportunity to learn things about one another that no one in their right mind would ever think of learning about one another. And thus, this Staff Blog was born. Weekly you’ll be hearing from one of our staff members and what we’re up to right now.

For our inaugural blog, you get the pleasure of hearing from me, Rob Gonzalez, AFF Film Competition Director. I am here today to talk to you about something that’s been on the rise lately.

Bread.

We all know that one person who the moment social distancing became a thing was like “Oh my god, this is the perfect opportunity to start making my own bread.” Some of you might even be that friend. I am that friend.

Bread is basically just a mix flour, water, and yeast and BOOM good to go. In theory.

I had no yeast in my kitchen. Which means I had to culture my own. I mixed equal parts water and flour, vigorously stirred, and then covered the bowl with an old pillowcase my girlfriend has been “suggesting” I get rid of. With frequent stirring yeasty cultures ignited and came alive. More flour, more water, more stirring. Repeat. Soon enough you have a sourdough starter. Mix that in with a bunch more flour, let rise, and bake. Sourdough loaf.

I didn’t make it that far.

I was not using a big enough bowl. I did not own a big enough bowl. So every time I vigorously stirred the sourdough starter and the yeast was excited and expanded slightly, that bowl got real full. One might even say too full. Which just led to sourdough starter all over the counter.

Fun fact though, if your sourdough starter is lively enough it will eat and destroy any bacteria or virus on said counter. I was actually being cleanly.

Counter cleanliness aside, I continued to feed my starter regularly and eventually came to the realization that I no longer had enough excess flour to actually bake bread.

But do not be discouraged readers. On top of having a newfound passion for breadmaking, I also love history.

San Francisco wants you to believe that all things sourdough stem from them and the 1848 California Gold Rush. But what Big Sourdough doesn’t want us all to know is about the sourdough of a different gold rush.

Alaska, 1896. Gold has been discovered in the Yukon. Miners and their bubbling pots of sourdough arrive and encounter immediate problems. Sourdough starter requires a temperature of 70 to 80 degrees to stay lively (see California). Alaska, on the other hand, would regularly see temperatures in the -50 range. Having living sourdough could literally mean you would eat or starve.

So, what does my meager supply of flour and Alaskan Sourdoughs have to do with one another? The premiere sourdough dish in Alaska was the Miner’s Hotcakes. No one had enough flour left over to make bread as they were all too busy robbing one another for their sourdough. So hotcakes on a fire were all they could manage!

And I have lots of starter and not lots of flour! Pancake time!

Basically, this is my confession to all of you that I, a grown man, have been eating nothing, but pancakes for the past week. Syrup pancakes, taco pancakes, burger pancakes, green bean pancakes. Pancakes, pancakes, pancakes.

I am the pancake king.

Now you know.

-Rob Gonzalez, Film Competition Director

Austin Film Festival serves to further the art and craft of storytelling. Our competitions are still running and we intend to continue connect storytellers to our audience and to the industry. Submit your script or film today! And don’t forget to tune into AFF At Home, where we bring AFF to you.

We collected your questions from the AFF at Home: Character page and social media for Brian Helgeland for a virtual Q&A about creating character. Brian Helgeland, writer L.A. Confidential, Mystic River, writer & director A... Read More

We collected your questions from the AFF at Home: Spark Your Story page and social media for Wendy Calhoun for a virtual Q&A about how to get a new project going. Wendy Calhoun, writer/producer EMPIRE,... Read More

We're excited for our Festival & Conference in October, but if this season has made us aware of anything - it’s that we don’t want to wait. Launching this Wednesday, we’ve created a virtual experience... Read More

Richard Lagravenese is a film & television writer/director/producer. Writer: Behind The Candelabra (Emmy, BAFTA Nominations), The Fisher King (Academy Award®, BAFTA and WGA award nominations), Unbroken, Water for Elephants, The Bridges of Madison County, A Little... Read More